CLEVELAND, Ohio — Fresh billboards lined the streets outside Rocket Arena. Across the way, the old “Four the Land” banner no longer hung like a relic of a completed chapter. Mini beard cutouts were worn by a sold-out crowd. It felt like Cleveland had been reintroduced to itself.
This was the first home game of the James Harden era.
When Harden’s name boomed through the arena speakers alongside the rest of the starting five, the reaction felt less like a routine pregame introduction and more like a premiere. And when Keon Ellis and Dennis Schröder checked in as the first two reserves, the decibel level spiked again.
But beneath the pageantry lived a basketball truth. This had trap written all over it.
The Cavs didn’t fall for it, taking a flamethrower to any hope the Wizards had of catching them off guard in their 138-113 victory on Wednesday night.
“Different buzz tonight,” Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson admitted. “I felt it when I walked in the arena. This is a superstar league … it’s great for Cleveland. It’s great for this market and these fans. They had LeBron over here for a long time. This is like another type of in that category superstar, which is really cool for everybody.”
After their excruciatingly long road trip that consisted of five cities and multiple time zones over 12 days, there was only one game standing between the Cavaliers and the All-Star break. In front of them, a tanking Washington Wizards team missing big man Alex Sarr, would test the team mentally more than talent-wise.
If Cleveland felt the moment, it didn’t show early.
The Cavs opened like a team determined to make a first impression of what this new era is about. Winning. Now.
They hit six of their first seven shots, ripped off a 21-5 lead in four minutes and forced Washington into early damage control.
By the end of a whistle-heavy first quarter — 28 combined free throws between the teams — Cleveland held a 16-point cushion. The tempo was methodical rather than chaotic, a subtle shift from the free-flowing pace that defined the opening months of the season. They weren’t racing. They were dissecting.
Then came the wobble.
Sharife Cooper, a familiar face from his Cleveland Charge days, authored a second-quarter flurry that momentarily shifted the energy. Eleven points in under seven minutes. A perfect 4-for-4 from the field. Three triples that barely disturbed the net. Washington’s run shrank the Cavs’ lead to seven and injected life into what had started as a coronation.
That’s when Sam Merrill detonated.
There are heaters. And then there’s whatever Merrill authored Wednesday night.
Nine shots. Nine makes. Seven from deep. Twenty-six first-half points. Seventeen of them poured in during a second-quarter stretch that felt like a glitch in the simulation. The Wizards chased him over screens. They switched. They lunged. It didn’t matter.
“I’m not a guy that’s really going to force it, but there are times where you can be a little more aggressive when you know that shot feels good,” Merrill said. “There was one or two where towards the end of that first half, I had a flyby, one dribble left and I think it was [Bub] Carrington. He kind of guarded it, OK. Like it was still somewhat contested, but at that point, like, I felt so good that I felt like he wasn’t even there. And that’s kind of what happens when it gets going like that.”
One sequence ended with Donovan Mitchell leaping onto Merrill in celebration, at one point wrapping him up and hopping onto his back as if the entire roster needed to physically contain the moment. The arena briefly thought Washington had called timeout. Instead, it was Cleveland simply unable to stop praising.
Merrill was relocating along the arc. Reading closeouts. Punishing late tags in pick-and-roll. Every shot came within the flow, a product of spacing discipline and quick processing.
“I think we’re 22-9 with him in the lineup,” Atkinson said. “He just connects everything. But it’s great. The crowd was great. Like, to appreciate that shooting exhibition, that was really cool. That was one of the cooler moments of the year. It was just hype and he just kept putting ‘em down and we kept finding him.”
At halftime, the Cavs led by 15.
Jarrett Allen’s dominance quietly underpinned it all.
With Washington effectively center-less without Sarr, Allen treated the paint like it belonged to him. Six-for-six from the field. Fourteen points. Five rebounds, three on the offensive glass. He imposed his will. Shoulder into chest. Second effort after initial contact. Soft hook when defenders retreated. Power finish when they didn’t.
The friendly giant was smiling through it.
That smile vanished in the third quarter.
Washington opened the half on a 12-2 run, slicing the margin to five. They attacked the paint relentlessly, collapsing Cleveland’s shell and forcing rotations a beat late. The building tensed.
Then came the whistle.
Allen was whistled for an offensive foul while tangled with a defender who appeared to have him hooked. He didn’t hide his displeasure. A few expletives later, a technical followed.
From that point on, Allen played like someone who took it personally. He elevated through contact for finishes that bent defenders backward. He erased layup and dunk attempts on the other end. He sprinted the floor like the play had insulted him.
“I’ve seen a new person,” Atkinson said. “I’d love to know when the change [happened]. He’s just completely different from the beginning of the year.
“… I think Evan [Mobley] being out, obviously he’s taken more and more responsibility. But this might be the best Jarrett Allen I’ve you seen since I’ve been here. Really impressive what he’s doing on both ends.”
The Cavs fed off it.
Mitchell poured in 14 of his 30 points in the third, toggling between scorer and orchestrator. He hunted mismatches in early offense, snaked through pick-and-roll to force help and sprayed the ball out to shooters when Washington overcommitted. The Wizards’ brief momentum evaporated under a blend of controlled aggression and interior force.
By the time the fourth quarter arrived, Cleveland’s lead had swelled back to 19.
Merrill finished with a game-high and career-high 32 points on nine triples, just two shy of Cleveland’s franchise record of 11 set by Kyrie Irving. But Merrill is the first player in Cavs history to have multiple games with 9 or more 3-pointers. Allen added 21 points, nine rebounds and two blocks. Harden had 13 points and 11 assists in his Rocket Arena debut.
“He makes the game easy for everybody else,” Atkinson said of Harden. “And that’s hard, you got to be a great player to do that. That behind-the-back pass to Jaylon [Tyson] on the roll. The timing even on his passes to the perimeter. It seemed, well, you guys know LeBron. LeBron’s like that. There’s very few guys that are like that. They just know the exact timing of every pass.”
For all the noise, Washington never led. Not once.
The second-quarter lull and third-quarter leakiness were reminders that focus is fragile, especially with vacation plans looming. But good teams don’t just win the games they’re supposed to. They understand how and why.
Cleveland matched emotional swings with poise rather than panic.
In a building celebrating a new era, the Cavs handled their business.
They’re slowly becoming a team that understands the difference between hype and habit and chose, on a Wednesday night that could have drifted, to lean into the latter.
Now comes a well-deserved break.
Next
Mitchell heads to his seventh All-Star Game. Jaylon Tyson will represent in the Rising Stars showcase. And when the league calendar flips back on Feb. 19 against Brooklyn, Rocket Arena will again be buzzing.
How to watch the Cavs: See how to watch the Cavs games with this handy game-by-game TV schedule.
